Nadia Neophytou is a New York based South African journalist most known for her work as the Entertainment Reporter for Eyewitness News, which is broadcast on Talk Radio 702, 567 Cape Talk, Highveld Stereo 94.7 and Kfm 94.5. She is now based in New York, as their US correspondent. Nadia also contributes to publications such as O, The Oprah Magazine, GQ, The Mail and Guardian andThe Sunday Times Lifestyle.

It’s one thing when a video goes viral for a few minutes of fame and then disappears into the ether of the Internet; it’s quite another when that video has the ability to change an every-day object used by people all over the world. At this year’s PSFK Conference, the two students behind the Rapid Packing Container, gave a physical demonstration of their new design for the cardboard box -- an idea that’s won them fans all over the world. ...

In May, the fruits of a partnership between one of America’s biggest corporations, and Quirky, a crowd-funding site that has been making app-powered invention a reality since 2009, will be seen. At the PSFK 2014 Conference, Doreen Lorenzo, from Quirky, and Linda Boff from GE, gave a sneak preview of the first product to come out of this partnership, which began in April last year.
Quirky and GE have created Wink, a place where ideas on how to make products ...

“I don’t want to take music back to the old days, I want to take it forward -- to the future,” says singer-songwriter Neil Young, dressed in his black hat and black leather jacket, pacing up and down the stage of the Austin Convention Centre’s Hall D. On the day that the Interactive portion wrapped up and the Music part began, Young came to SXSW to launch a new music service, one he believes will benefit listeners to hear music ...

In a rare appearance, and via Google Hangout from Russia where he has been granted political asylum, Edward Snowden urged thousands of tech enthusiasts attending the SXSW Interactive Conference to become 'firefighters' in the jostle between government surveillance and privacy issues.
To some he's a hero, to others -- like the congressman who asked SXSW to cancel the panel on the grounds that Snowden's freedom of speech doesn't extend to Russia -- the former CIA employee is a traitor. But to ...

Over an at-times wonky Skype connection, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange connected through to a packed Exhibition Hall 5 of the Austin Convention Centre this weekend, to urge the public to become more actively aware of how their information is being collected and used online.
Wearing a scarf (even though he hasn't left the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has found refuge from extradition for almost a year), Assange addressed the crowd of around 3 000 people, answering questions about the ...

The first of the keynotes kicked off SXSW 2014 with a speaker who once attended many a Southby sitting in the back, drawing illustrations of what he saw and heard happening up on stage. On Friday, Austin Kleon found himself standing on a Southyby stage, while an illustrator from ImageThink illustrated his words on a screen below him.
Kleon, the author of Newspaper Blackout and Steal Like an Artist, two best-selling books that have helped many a creative soul out of ...

"Zero to a billion dollars in five years” - With that statement alone, Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and president of Chobani yoghurt, needed little fanfare for his PSFK 2013 talk. With no slides, no pictures or audio accompaniment necessary, Ulukaya became one of the highlights of this year’s conference, illustrating how his gut instinct led him to take on a new venture that has since had a meteoric rise to success and amassed a solid social media following in the ...

Fashion, entrepreneurship and doing good are the corner-stones of the Warby Parker philosophy, which co-founder Neil Blumenthal explained during his time at the 2013 PSFK conference. A collaboration started by four friends, who were tired of paying a small fortune for new glasses, is now a study in how little or no marketing can go a long way in building a successful start-up.
Launched in 2010 by four MBA students at the Wharton School of Business, Warby Parker was conceived ...

Google’s Strategic Planning chief Abigail Posner attempted to explain the phenomenon that is the screaming goat meme at the 2013 PSFK conference, held in New York City recently. Over four-billion hours of video is watched each month on YouTube and 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, so, why are we watching what we’re watching, she asks. And why are we taking pictures of the seemingly everyday mundane things, like what we’re eating for lunch? Why are ...

“There’s a f***ing zeitgeist going on with what’s happening in terms of art and crowd-funding right now,” states singer Amanda Palmer. “Everyone is getting inspired!” Last year Palmer -- musician, poet, all-out wild child -- leveraged her social media network to raise the money she needed for her latest album, book and tour. Palmer, who has used Kickstarter before, was surprised by the amount she managed to raise -- a record-breaking figure of US$1 192 793 from 24 883 fans ...